Baking and Making

October is a busy month for me with 2 birthdays. There are birthday cakes and birthday treats for classes to make. Then, you add Halloween on top of it. It's a crazy baking and making month for me! My husband just said to me, as if to just remind me again, "You are a crazy woman, and I've known that for years." (he said that yesterday during his lunch time looking at me just starting to make J's Halloween costume, yes, on the day before Halloween.) But I LOVE watching kids' smile and "Wow!" reactions. I thrive for it. That's why I bake and make things, just to see those happy faces!

Birthday cupcakes for M's class - chocolate cupcake and chocolate frosting with black food coloring. I don't know if the teachers liked the idea of messy black food colored frosting, but M loved it.

 

 

 

J's birthday cake. It's, of course, a tank. I tried fondant for the first time. I was not so happy, but he love it. And my husband actually finished it up for me because I was so frustrated.

 

M's birthday cake. It is supposed to be a fire truck. Why a 6-year-old girl want a fire truck cake for her birthday? "6-year-olds suppose to have fire truck cakes. That's what J had when he turned 6!" is M's response. Actually, looking back, I think J had something else on his 6th birthday...but we won't tell her that. She enjoyed decorating her truck with all the candies. Very festive.

Gingerbread mummies

They were birthday treats for J's class and it was a hit!

CTR sugar cookies for J's baptism

More sugar cookies for J's baptism

Mummy pigs-in-blanket. I made them for a party with "a pool of blood (a.k.a. ketchup)"

My favorite breakfast these days - home made granola (recipe adjusted from this) and frozen blueberries we picked this summer on top of vanilla yogurt.

A birthday gift for my mother-in-law - I just couldn't find what I hoped to find, so I decided to make it. Mothers' family tree broach/pendant top. She has 7 children. I was very pleased with the final product. Unfortunately, I was home sick when they celebrated her birthday, but I hope she liked it.

This was something for me. I wanted Halloween earrings, then one day the flat circle bead inspired me to make one. My husband thinks I should add some red dots to make them look like Black Widow....hmmm.

Last, but not least, here is the costume I started around lunch time yesterday (jacket, vest, and banner thingy). J was so excited and had a huge smile on his face!

 

 

Eating good

Summer is over, school has started, and I have a little bit of breathing time on Monday afternoon. So I decided to post something....then I realized how many photos of food I have taken this past month or so....Well, I love food. What can I say?

My dear husband found a treasure over this summer. We call it "Natalie's place". She sells beautiful fruits and vegetables from her garden or nearby Amish farm. No pesticides. She is not "certified" organic farmer, but she grows them pretty much organically. And they taste like, well, what fruits and vegetable should taste, that you know they grew up with sunshine, not some fertilizer. You know they are picked by her hands with much care, not by...okay, I won't say anything more than that.

Anyway, we have been eating good, I mean GOOD, local food.

Here is very meaty "Stripe Roma Tomatoes" waiting to be canned.
Yes, they are from Natalie's place. Just gorgeous. And they are yummy!

Here is our dinner one night.
Menu:
- Japanese style hamburger steak (made with grass fed beef from my co-worker's farm) with Teriyaki sauce,
- Sauteed zucchini with bacon
- Steamed corn
- Steamed potatoes (blue, red, and white!) with home grown parsley and chives

Locally famous "Buttermilk Pie" with melons from Natalie's place as dessert.

Okay, this was random. But they are cute, aren't they?
This, nothing local. Just yellow cake cupcake (though I did made it from scratch only because I didn't have boxed cake mix) with baby face on top. They are just vanilla wafers decorated with royal icing. Specially made for my friend.

Army of canned peaches ready for winter,

and they remind me of this poster.
{Photo source here}

I really think I can eat this kid.

Mmmm!

I didn't know gingerbread man had bones...

Halloween-theme snack for J's class: "Ginger-Skeletons" (that's what J calls). The idea came from Family Fun magazine, and the recipe was from Allrecipes.com. This was my first time trying this recipe, but it was really good. I baked for 8 minutes just like the reviews, and they turned soft and delicious. It's definitely a keeper recipe.
The first thing J told me after he got off the bus today? "Mom! Everyone LOVED the ginger-skeletons!" Yay!

Hello, beautiful.

The look of it, the smell of it, and the taste of it, you are just beautiful. Sorry, your twin sister disappeared pretty quickly at dinner table, and later as a bed time snack. I'm sure you miss her, but don't worry, you'll soon join her, in our stomachs. It's part of the deal you signed up; we have to eat you. So, here is the proof you were here. You look beautiful! Oh, I won't forget your grand entrance to this world from the oven. It was just gorgeous. The butter on the top helped you really glow, literally.
So, PBJ, or turkey club? Or maybe just good-ol'-bread-and-butter? A glass of chocolate milk might make a good compliment. Yeah, that sounds good. Let's do that.

A whole new world of cooking

I made Tabouli for the first time this week. While I was taking a break from chopping vegetables (I was making for 60 servings), I wrote an e-mail to a friend saying, "I am making Tabouli. I have no idea what I'm doing, but you are going to eat it tomorrow." I guess she got a good laugh out of my comment. It turned out it was a hit (or at least those girls were nice to me). So I decided to post my version of Tabouli recipe on my food blog (which has not been so active. Shhh.). This is based on 2 different recipes with some adjustments and tweaking. Oh, and the measurement there is totally "guestimated" amount. My husband tells me that he never gets tired of my cooking because it tastes different every time even if it's a same dish.
Now I want to try making pita bread and humus. I was really tempted to start making something, but I realized that it's past 10 pm. I'm going to bed. Maybe tomorrow. Pita and humus can be part of Easter dinner, right? Happy Easter.

Creation of the day

The fanciest dinner of the week - pancakes. Letter-shape ones, to be specific. There were many snake-shape ones from tempted "S"s and "J"s and some unknown shape ones. But kids loved what they had on their plates (above). Thanks to my friend Cari for the idea. I used an old ketchup bottle instead. It worked great. J ate all the "failed" letters and wanted to keep the good shape ones for later. Pancakes have been not so popular for kids lately, but I think this technique brought them back to kids' favorite food list.

Theme "Creation" updates

Update from yesterday, "Creation of the day" - Burrito dinner, from scratch. Tortilla, beans, Spanish rice, and the meat. I will post recipe on my recipe blog site soon. If you would like to be a contributor, let me know.

Today's "Creation of the day" - a clean kitchen. It sounds lame, sort of, but it "created" a calm and peace in the kitchen. That's still a creation, right? Starting with normal washing dishes routine and around the sink, counter top, then onto to stove top, to over the stop vent, and fridge wall. No, I didn't mop, but it was good enough creation for the day. Oh, I baked another batch of french bread. That counts too.

Creation

I am having a theme this week - creation.
"...Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty.....Creation means bringing into existence something that did not exist before—colorful gardens, harmonious homes, family memories, flowing laughter..." is quoted by Dieter F. Uchtdorf.
It's true. When I make something and see the progress or result, I get a sense of satisfaction. And because, somehow, almost every year, this almost-end-of-winter-but-not-quite-yet-in-Michigan weather in March is so hard for me. I needed something to perk me up.

So, that's the theme. Creation. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, but I'm going to try to create something this week.

Yesterday, I created a memory with my daughter, making pizza from scratch - dough and 2 kind of sauces. No pic, sorry. I'll post another time. M "helped" me rolling the dough and poking with folk. Mostly, she was next to me playing with water in the sink, but it's a start of creating memory in the kitchen with mom, just like I remember with my mom in her kitchen. By the way, I believe I just made the most delicious home-made pizza - I got thumbs up from J and "Mmmmm!!!" from my hubby.

Today, I baked a french bread, the pic below. They were so beautiful, and tasted yummy. And J and I baked cupcakes. I measured, and J poured them in a mixer. We created yummy cupcakes and green frosting together - a good memory of being in the kitchen together. I hope kids will remember these things coming out of Mommy's kitchen, not from a box at some store.

I just checked out a book, Just Like Mama Used to Make. It's a recipe book, but also talks about traditions and things in this Italian family. She talks how her mom is the kitchen all the time - cooking, canning, baking, etc. I thought "that sounds like me!" I really love being in the kitchen making things. One point in my life, I had thought myself as less of a mom because I don't sit down with kids to play much, or bring painting stuff out for kids to make a mess. But that was silly of me. I do enough with kids in my kitchen. That's our playground - with flour and sugar and water and all kind of unorganized matter. We put them into our hands and mold it into something of beauty. What a beauty.

Not a good first impression, maybe

But give a chance, once. Maybe, just maybe, this guy looks ugly, with bumps and crevices. But it sure tastes good - BEST UPSIDE DOWN GERMAN CHOCOLATE CAKE. My husband's favorite cake is German Chocolate Cake. I dared him this is better than actual normal German Chocolate Cake. So I made it for his boss's birthday party as a try-out. You know, just in case I failed, he wanted a good German Chocolate Cake for his birthday. Well, he didn't want to say out loud, but he admitted that it is better than normal German Chocolate Cake (at least ones he has had in his life). This recipe came from a volunteer at a local hospice where I work.

BEST UPSIDE DOWN GERMAN CHOCOLATE CAKE
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup coconut
1 stick butter
1 - 8 oz cream cheese
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 German Chocolate Cake mix - the best is Betty Crocker Super Moist

Spray 13x9 pan with Pam spray. Sprinkle coconut and nuts in the bottom of the pan. Mix cake mix according to directions and pour over the nuts and coconut. Melt butter and cream cheese on med heat in large sauce pan. Add powdered sugar and stir until lumps are gone. Gently pour this mixture over the top of the cake batter. Bake at 350 degree for approximately 35 minutes. Insert toothpick if comes out clean it is done.

This cake will have peaks and valleys and crevices on the top. It is not pretty but is delicious.
Double the recipe for a crowd and use a 13x19 pan - baking time approximately the same.

My husband's grandmother might call it "a sweet spirit (i.e. ugly outside but pretty inside) ."
You never know what you are missing if you reject based on the first impression. Oh, I hope my hubby will bring a small piece home for me, but I fully doubt that....